How is Gasol the Player of the Month?

Okay, Pau Gasol is a great flipping 2nd option. On Kobe's team he was able to chip in 20.9 ppg (58.6 fg%) and 10.9 rpg. Kobe's Lakers went 11-2 this last month of February. Gasol was named Western Conference Player of the Month. The Jazz went 10-1 in that same month, and Deron Williams (not the second banana on his team, and playing without starters during the month due to injuries) averaged 23.2 ppg (51.2 fg%, 87.1 ft%, and averages a made three for each game), 10.9 apg, 2.9 rpg and 0.9 spg. Deron also led his team to wins over Pau's Kobe's LA Lakers, the defending World Champion Boston Celtics, and ESPN's not-so-secret crush's New Orleans Hornets -- all in the same month.

So . . . better records . . . better stats . . . played on team filled with injuries = Kobe's cabana boy gets PotM?

Thanks NBA. You stay classy.

p.s. I know Sloan won Coach of the Month . . . but really, this is not something that even is worthy of debate.

Dollar$ and Cent$: Just say 'No' to the 2009 NBA Draft

First of all, if you are a Pete Maravich/Ricky Rubio fan, then you don't need to worry about this draft. Secondly, if you are the Utah Jazz, you don't want nothing to do with this one either, but for an entirely different reason: money. Money is a huge big deal in the NBA -- and in more than that art imitates life type of way. People want to get paid. (Even if they don't deserve it) Utah -- when healthy -- is a pretty nice team. In order to keep this team together the Jazz Brass (particularly Jazz GM Kevin O'Connor) is going to have to get new team owner Greg Miller to open the, how do you say, "cheque book". The salary situation is bananas. (but not in the "it changes every day" type of way) Just take a look for yourself. This off season the Jazz may have to ink new deals for Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, Paul Millsap, Jarron Collins and Kyrylo Fesenko -- essentially all the bigmen on the roster except for Andrei Kirilenko and current rookie Kosta Koufos.

Boozer	Okur	Millsap	Fesenko	Collins
$12.7 mill next year, looking for more according to interview he gave weeks ago to ESPN	$9 mill next year, looking for more (according to Turkish media)	Making less than $800k, Restricted Free Agent will be offered 10x that on the market at least	Team option for less than $900k	Somehow making $2 mill this year

That's not all the free agents though, as the Jazz will need to figure out what they are doing with their point guard situation (both back-ups, Brevin Knight and Ronnie Price, have expiring contracts) and that Morris Almond guy . . . well, it's a damn shame what happened to that guy. The year after that (i.e. the Off-Season of 2010) there needs to be some money for Ronnie Brewer (who's qualifying offer is going to be at a hair under $4 million per season), Matt Harpring (who, for whatever reason, we are incapable of getting rid of) and anyone else who didn't get taken care of this off-season.

The 'best' thing is to find out which guys we really want, and develop a strategy to keep them. Out of all of those names the most important free agents (right now) are Boozer, Okur, Millsap, Brewer and Knight. Championship teams do not depend on the services of guys like Jarron Collins, or Ronnie Price. Brewer does not need a new deal until next season. Mehmet Okur has not made any waves about opting out, unlike Boozer, so both of them 'could' still be on the books for the next year. (At the rate of $9 million and $12.7 million respectively) If all three are on the books then we only really need to worry about Knight and Millsap. The back-up PG situation can be handled with part of the exception. (I could be wrong, as I'm not a cap-ologist) The rest of the money can be used on Millsap. (What money? Where is this money coming from? The Jazz are already over the cap . . . there IS no more money!) The closer to reality we get (and hence, the closer to actually dealing with the cap) the closer we get to recognizing that this situation sucks.

There just isn't enough money to go around. If you bare bones it, have Boozer opt out (and not be resigned by the Jazz), let Collins and Price walk, jettison Fesenko with the team option on his contract -- then you'll have enough money to go around for Millsap, Okur, Brewer and Knight over the next two season . . . but only have 9 players on the roster. You're not allowed to have only 9 players on your roster. The Jazz will have to pick up a few low cost scrubs in order to fill out the roster -- not a bad move, but still, there's no guarantee that Boozer will opt out now (even though he said that he would), and secondly, the Jazz may not (for whatever reason) get rid of Collins, Price *or* Fesenko. Under Larry H. Miller, R.I.P., the Jazz were a small town family more than they were a business. Guys like Harpring and Collins had expiring contracts a few seasons ago, and they were given (back then) seriously over priced golden handshake deals. It should have ended there, but I don't know if it really will. So, okay, let's scratch that idea of the Jazz actually going to 'not' sign company men. I really do not have a great solution to the Jazz financial situation, but, I do know where some money can be saved: the 2009 NBA Draft.

Right now the Jazz are not going to go over the hump with a late 1st round pick and a late 2nd round pick. Especially not from this upcoming draft. The last thing the Jazz need is to use money on a guaranteed contract that'll eat up some of the money that would be better served being spent on the likes of Millsap or Brevin Knight. Luckily, the Jazz are in just the position to get rid of their draft picks this year. We owe Philly a 1st round pick (from the Korver trade), and Philly owes Minnesota a 1st round pick (Rodney Carney trade). If the Jazz pick lower than 22nd in this year, Minnesota will get our pick. That helps out everyone involved, especially the Jazz. The hard part, though, is getting a good enough record to finish the season with so that we are picking at 22 or lower. The Jazz will need to finish with one of the top 9 records in the league when all is said and done. Where are we today? Sitting at #10, percentage points behind New Orleans. If Utah can leapfrog New Orleans, Portland and Houston we'll be in the clear -- while keeping Dallas, Atlanta and Phoenix behind us in the standings. Sounds very plausible, and while I'd love to give up on a very late 1st round draft pick and save money, I don't know how possible this is going to end up being. The longer we hold onto the pick that we owe Philly -- that they'll give to Minnesota -- the better the pick can possibly get (going upwards from #22 to getting near the lotto if we hold it till 2013). Better to get rid of it sooner, rather than later.

The 2nd round pick is an entirely different animal, as the Jazz may be willing to keep it in plans of a draft and stash with another International (most likely European) player. This way the money for that guy is not on the books, but we still keep the rights to him. We're currently doing this with International Men of Mystery Tadija Dragicevic and Ante Tomic. As far as I am concerned, we have enough European bigmen to last a few seasons. I don't think that European swingmen are the answer to our problems. Nor do I think that our future back-up PG is going to be a European point guard. Sure, we could draft and stash *any* International player, but I don't know how great our scouting of South America is. (If we're not getting a Euro, he'll be from the Americas somewhere -- don't see us drafting an Asian or African player -- I really don't think we're actively scouting those parts of the world) The answer here, again, appears to be giving our pick to Philly, as we still owe them future considerations in the 2nd round because of the Fesenko-Hill trade a few years back.

We skip the draft this season, focus on the players we have, and save some money right now. I think that's not a bad idea at all. Plus, then the next year's draft (2010), we'll have plenty of picks that we can use as assets for trades, or well, you know, draft picks. We may have a few holes to fill two off-seasons from now. We'll have two 1st round picks (our own, hopefully a low pick; and the Knicks unprotected, possibly lotto, pick). I'm sure both of those picks could be traded to a bad team if we wanted to move up in the draft . . . I dunno . . . if we actually find someone that we'd like to add to the team.

In completely unrelated news, doesn't this kid look like Fesenko's younger brother? This guy is Donatas Motiejunas, a Lithuanian center that projects to be a lotto pick in the 1st round of the 2010 NBA Draft. I don't know much about the kid, but I do know that unless he's the reincarnation of Wilt, I don't want the Jazz to ever get close to drafting this guy. We have enough young center prospects that we're not developing already.

Forward March!

The Utah Jazz finished February with their best record in franchise history: 10-1. It was a spectacular month filled with victories over the likes of the LA Lakers, Boston Celtics, New Orleans Hornets and playoff teams from both conferences. As good as February was, January was a travesty where the Jazz limped to a 7-8 record. There are only 23 games left in the regular schedule -- and only 23 games left for the Jazz to make any solid moves up in the standings. March sees the Jazz playing in 15 games, and April has the Jazz playing in 8 regular season games. They are on the road 14 times, and at home only 9 times.

The major problem I can see, when looking over the schedule, is that fatigue is really going to set in late. Hopefully this is the case with all of the teams in the running for the playoffs -- but the Jazz have a particularly tough task. First of all, there's another extended Eastern Conference road trip that needs to happen, one that will span 8 days, and have the Jazz playing 5 times. (we already know how poor the Jazz are on the road, and how poor they are against the East . . .) The Jazz will face off against Toronto, Indiana, Atlanta, Miami and Orlando. The games against Atlanta and Orlando are both the 2nd night of back to back sets; furthermore, the game against Atlanta would be the 3rd game in 4 nights. If the Jazz win three out of those five games I'll be bouncing off the walls.

The second, and perhaps larger, problem is the cumulative effect of all of these games. The Jazz play 8 back to back sets still. (15 of our last 23 games are either the first or second game of a back to back set, or 70%) If that was not enough, 9 of these last 23 games will be the 3rd game in 4 nights for the Jazz. (@ Atlanta, vs. Washington, @ Portland, @ Denver, vs. Minnesota, @ New Orleans, vs. Golden State, vs. LA Clippers, @ LA Lakers) Do any of those look like important games to win? I see a few there.

The largest obstacle will be around the end of March and the beginning of April where the Jazz will play Houston at home, then the next night fly to Phoenix to take on the Suns. Two days later the Jazz face the Suns at home. I don't know the exact injury situation with Phoenix, but as far as I can tell, they will either be in full tank mode, or swing for the fences mode. The next week the Jazz will face the Knicks at home, then fly the next night to play the Blazers -- one of the previously mentioned 3rd game in 4 nights sets. This will be the last game of March, and it goes all downhill from there. The Jazz then fly over to Denver to play the first game of a back to back set, which is also the 3rd game in 4 nights, and yes, the 5th game in 6 nights. How often do you get the 5th game in 7 nights? Very rarely, but only when you play a game the very next night, at home against Minnesota, that's the second night of a back to back, and ultimately, the 6th game in 7 nights. Yes, this is how the Jazz start off April -- playing 6 times in a week, with one of our last remaining 'gimmie' games at home against a non-playoff team being scheduled at the worst possible time. [EDIT: This is incorrect, the Jazz game vs. the Timberwolves will be the 5th game in 7 nights, not 6th in 7]

To add insult to injury, the Jazz play again, on the road in New Orleans on that Sunday, a single game that does not look too hard, but will be the 3rd game in 4 nights, and the 4th game in 6 games, 5th game in 7. The Jazz will have a needed two day rest, and then finish the last 5 games of the seasons @ Dallas, @ San Antonio, vs. Golden State (2nd game in a back to back set, 3rd game in 4 nights), vs. the LA Clippers (3rd game in 4 nights), and then on the road to face the LA Lakers (2nd night in a back to back set, 3rd game in 4 nights).

I really pray that this is the case for all teams right now, and that everyone will be equally tired to finish the season. The Jazz play against a Top 10 team in the Western Conference 13 times (out of 15 remaining Western Conference games) to finish the season. The Jazz are shaky on the road . . . hopefully Boozer will be full of energy from that mid-season holiday he took.

Just because I am insane, here it all is in chart form:

	Game	Opponent	Location	Date	Conf.	Playoff Team	Part of B2B Set?	Other:
March	1	Golden State	Road	March 1	West		2nd game
	2	Houston	Home	March 4	West	Yes		Season series 0-2
	3	Denver	Home	March 6	West	Yes		Season series 1-1
	4	Toronto	Road	March 8	East
	5	Indiana	Road	March 10	East		1st game
	6	Atlanta	Road	March 11	East	Yes	2nd game	3rd game in 4
	7	Miami	Road	March 14	East	Yes	1st game
	8	Orlando	Road	March 15	East	Yes	2nd game
	9	Washington	Home	March 17	East			3rd game in 4
	10	Oklahoma City	Road	March 20	West
	11	Houston	Home	March 24	West	Yes	1st game
	12	Phoenix	Road	March 25	West	?	2nd game	Season series 1-1
	13	Phoenix	Home	March 28	West	?
	14	New York	Home	March 30	East		1st game	Last game vs. East until Finals
	15	Portland	Road	March 31	West	Yes	2nd game	3rd game in 4
April	16	Denver	Road	April 2	West	Yes	1st game	3rd game in 4 4th game in 6
	17	Minnesota	Home	April 3	West		2nd game	3rd game in 4 4th game in 5 5th game in 7
	18	New Orleans	Road	April 5	West	Yes		3rd game in 4 4th game in 6 5th game in 7
	19	Dallas	Road	April 8	West	Yes
	20	San Antonio	Road	April 10	West	Yes	1st game
	21	Golden State	Home	April 11	West		2nd game	3rd game in 4
	22	LA Clippers	Home	April 13	West		1st game	3rd game in 4
	23	LA Lakers	Road	April 14	West	Yes	2nd game	3rd game in 4 4th game in 5

The Jazz are currently sitting at 36-23, and need 14 games to win 50 for the season. ESPN.com predicted that the Jazz would win 51 games -- a number that I thought was ridiculously low back in Pre-Season. I was so bold as to suggest that the Jazz would finish the season (including playoffs) with 65 wins this year. The last two seasons the Jazz won 60 games total (2006-2007: 51 regular season, 9 playoffs; 2007-2008: 54 regular season, 6 playoffs) -- so I felt like a 5 game improvement wouldn't be that far out of the realm of possibility. For my statement to be true (65 wins), and let's assume the Jazz win 6 playoff games (2nd round exit) the Jazz will need to win each of these last 23 games. As much as that would be awesome, I just don't see it happening. (In my defense, though, I could not know that the Jazz would miss over 150 man games to injury this year)

Instead of doing the whole 'poke holes into my ability to gauge how well my team can win games' game, let's move forward . . . into March. The Jazz have momentum right now, having won 7 games straight, 9 in a row at home, and 10 of their last 11. They need to keep it going, or else they may end up facing San Antonio or the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. I'd take the Jazz' chances in the first round against any of the other teams in the West (Denver, Houston, Portland, New Orleans, Dallas, Phoenix), even without home court. The Playoff Push all starts tonight on the road to the Golden State Warriors -- who killed us last time we played them.

The Jedi Voodoo Mind Trick Hype Machine

It should come as no surprise that after the Jazz started to get a) some of their injured guys back, and b) allowed some of their banged up guys (who were still playing) to get well again that c) the Jazz would start to win some games. Similarly so, people all over the world would start lauding Utah again. This has been par for the course over the last few seasons. In the 2004-2005 season the Jazz won only 26 games. Why? Not because of any extra-ordinary amount of 'suck', but because of injuries. (AK and Booz were out almost all of the season EACH) The next year -- when healthy -- the Jazz almost made the playoffs. End result: people started to talk about the Jazz. Since that time, the Jazz have increased their wins in each of the successive seasons. Alas, it would be folly to suggest that the Jazz did better when they weren't flying under the radar.

They do. A small market team that no one likes tends to band together better with the 'us against the world' attitude that happens with multiple all-star snubs, and poor projected win numbers. When everyone is flying high with the Jazz bad things happen. (After all, that 2004-2005 season where the Jazz won only 26 games was supposed to be a big win season according to ESPN.com, they had improved themselves the most over the off-season in their power rankings) Perhaps being disregarded early (due to poor playing in December and January each season) helps the team mentally get ready to "show everyone" that they were wrong for counting out the Jazz.

After all, no one was talking Jazz at the All-Star breaks the last few seasons (except for last season maybe), but each time the team is able to have spectacular runs in the final 30 games of the season and have won their division twice in a row. The mental edge that some of our players hone due to being passed over may not be so sharp right now when everyone and their grandmother is counting the Jazz in this time around.

Hollinger, of ESPN.com, once suggested that the Jazz would be the team to watch in 2009. Even after the season of injuries that the Jazz have suffered so far, he contends that the Jazz can still win the division. Mark Stein, also of ESPN.com, moved the Jazz up to 9th best in the league in his power rankings, and in his chat later on this week suggested that he should have moved then up to 7th best.  Chad Ford, again, ESPN.com, chimed in yesterday that when healthy "the Jazz . . . are the Lakers biggest competition in the West." Skeets and Tas over at TheBasketballJones suggest that the Jazz *are* this good, and only injuries got in the way.

As nice as all of this sounds, even the most vocal, yet highly respected, detractors of the Jazz have gotten on the respect wagon of late. AOL's NBA Fanhouse could be my browser homepage, their contributors get the news out from all over the league onto the net almost faster than anyone else. They recently had a roundtable discussion on the Jazz, and anyone who knows their writers knows not to expect glowing reviews. Matt Moore has contested for quite a long time that the Jazz are paper tigers. [fair enough...] He, however, did recant somewhat on his own blog, the amazing Hardwood Paroxysm, with his post "In the interest of fairness". (SLCDunk.com quoted MM yesterday on his LHM tribute) Moore even suggests that reading the comments in the Fanhouse roundtable elicited him to dig a little deeper.

"But I read the comments on our round table today, which featured an amazing combination of actually lucid, intelligent commenters, and I realized that I just didn’t fully give the story."

I'm guessing he wasn't talking about the comment calling everyone a moron, but perhaps maybe this one started things off. That "Doc A" guy sounds really smart. Now only if he had a blog that he could post his thoughts on . . . one that properly formatted itself depending on the browser settings of the viewer . . . grrrr. [For those who didn't get it, I'm "Doc A"] Tom Ziller (you should know who this guy is if you like reading basketball on the internet) goes where no one else has gone before and even suggests that we should, collectively, "Fear the Utah Jazz".

The recent love for the Jazz extends beyond the reaches of ESPN.com's columnists or bloggers . . . Kenny Smith (who has two rings), despite not being able to pronounce Deron Williams' name, goes out and heaps praise on our, small market team. Charley Rosen, Phil Jackson's butt buddy, is an opinionated old coot whose analysis of games is limited to whatever game is on cable TV that month. Dude doesn't even go to games. Essentially, if you look past his mediocre success as an assistant coach in the CBA he has no greater insight into the game than anyone else with a remote control and a laptop. This week he found it within his back heart to say something nice about our players -- one in particular -- the same one that Kenny Smith can't pronounce despite covering him for at least two rounds in each of the last two playoffs. All of this must sound great if you are a Jazz fan, right? On one hand it either shows that the world at large is a) respecting our team, or b) had their head so far up their sigmoid colon that they merely overlooked the Jazz and their lower seed record as evidence that the Jazz were just a bad team. I don't particularly find much comfort in either answer.

The Jazz don't do well with hype. You can look back and see what happened in that eventful 2004-2005 season, or look farther back at what happened in the 1998-1999 playoffs . . . or still farther back to one of those 5 first round exists during the early Stockton & Malone era after looking so good at such a young age by taking the Lakers to 7 games in 1987-1988. Hype can dull the edge, or worse, completely remove the chip off of the shoulders of our hungrier players. By giving the Jazz too much hype, perhaps, our expectations for them will never be attainable? Partly because of our expectations, but alternatively, also due to the hype removing some of the focused insanity that motivates people when they feel disrespected. Utah needs all the focus they can get, just look at their road record vs. under .500 teams . . . they don't play well unless they feel like they have something to prove.

So please, for the sake of the Jazz, don't hype them.

"To be honest with you Diane, I'm surprised..."

You may not know where that quote is from, so just to get it over with . . . watch this.

This season has been surprising for a variety of reasons, and there are some things that have surprised me immensely; though, I was probably not as surprised as Erica up above was, the point needs to be said: this run on sentence features the word "surprise" a surprisingly large number of times. In celebration of me murdering the English language, here are the Top 5 surprises of the Utah Jazz season so far:

5. Record against Eastern Conference teams:

Right now the Jazz are sitting at 32-23. Over that span the Jazz have gone 22-11 against the Western Conference, that's not too shabby when you look at how injured they have been. Over a closer inspection, though, this reveals that the Jazz have gone 10-12 against the East so far this season. That's pathetic. Sure, 7 of those 12 losses have been on the road (on brutal road trips); but that means that the Jazz have lost to the East 5 times ON THEIR OWN HOMECOURT! Chicago, New Jersey, Miami, Orlando and Cleveland have all beat the Jazz in Salt Lake City. It's bad enough to lose to contenders on your homer court, but to lose to teams like the Bulls, Heat and Nets is just inexcusable. I remember that Orlando game vividly, the Jazz were pounding Orlando, I felt good about the game and went out to get some "drive thu" at halftime. When I came back the Jazz were getting killed. What happened? For whatever reason, the Jazz have sucked against the east this season . . . it's one thing to have the Cavs sweep you, but the Bulls also? Yeeesh!

4. Kyle Korver's shooting:

Remember the good old days, last season, when Korver shot 47.4 fg%, 38.8 3pt% and 91.7 ft%? Those were good days, weren't they? They were not career highs for Kyle (save for fg%) but he came to the Jazz with shooting percentages that boasted career averages of over 40% from deep and 88% from the stripe. I even felt that he would improve after a Utah Jazz training camp (based on the premise that Hornacek's percentages all went up from his half a season with the Jazz to his first full season). Well, this season he's been fighting through a wrist injury on his shooting hand that has seriously impacted his shot making ability. It hasn't hurt any other parts of his game as he's boarding better, playing remarkably solid defense for stretches . . . and he's still getting the same TYPES of shots that he was making last season (i.e. waaaay open shots within the Jazz offense). That said, here are his numbers this season through the 51 games he has played so far: 40.9 FG% 34.7 3PT% 85.5 FT% Sure, they are not that bad, especially not his FT and 3PT percentages compared to the average guard off the bench in the NBA, but let's not forget that shooting is Kyle's speciality. He's shooting 7% worse from the floor than he did last season. His three point percentage is a CAREER LOW right now (wasn't he supposed to be our three point ace?) and his FT% used to be sky high (90+ %) but has leveled off quite a bit.

3. Kosta Koufos is a lot better than I thought he would be:

I like Kosta, he seems like an amazing person and an amazing team mate. He's very coachable and works very hard. I did not know that he was as good as he has shown, though. I did probably over analyze his games over the Rocky Mountain Review, but I'm happy to say that he's not the same player that we all first saw. Back then he was a guy who almost shot the ball as frequently as once every 2 minutes on the floor, was a dead-eye FT shooter (90.9 ft%) and had a 38.1 fg%. Really, check out the stats. Instead he's a guy who is giving the Jazz almost 5 ppg (51 fg%, 70 ft%), 3 rpg, and nearly 1 bpg -- as a rookie. It's surprising that we aren't seeing more of him. I appraised him and his first season as one of learning, working hard, and being much more offensively gifted than Fesenko was as a rookie. I was correct on all of those counts; though, I thought that he would have at least spent some time down with the NBA-DL . . . but Jerry has hardly used that at all this season.

2. The Boozer/Millsap conundrum:

I think that Boozer is pretty much what anyone would want from a power forward statistically. He scores very efficiently and rebounds like a man possessed. Millsap doesn't have the offensive polish of Boozer, but in times where 'Sap got playing time, he was able to produce some really eye-opening numbers. This is how I felt at the beginning of the season, and still, it's hard to get away from my thoughts which suggest that Boozer is a quality NBA starter (just not on man to man defense), and Paul Millsap is a Top 10 Bench player in the NBA. There's a fine line that should distinguish these two (and no, I don't mean salary), and at times this season Millsap has shown himself to be the equal, better, or in some cases, lesser of Carlos Boozer -- at times blurring this line, and other times justifying it. Arguments can (and have been) made to suggest one is better than the other, but really, shouldn't we be happy to have both -- together!?! (Even if it's just for the short term?) Boozer can do things Millsap can't, and vice versa. Millsap's play this season (mostly as a starter as Boozer has been injured for 43 games) may have pushed his going rate to higher than the Jazz may be willing to pay -- if they intend on keeping both players. This is a surprise to me, because I felt as though Millsap was a great younger player, but not a guy knocking on the door of a $8+ million dollar a year contract. How many of you out there on the Internet thought he would be worth as much?

1. All the Injuries / The Jazz record despite all the Injuries:

I don't really need to spell this one out, but I'm really surprised at all the injuries -- and even more surprised by being so many games over .500 -- I guess this is why you have to play the games though, right? Just read this for more information.

Walking Wounded

Let's be honest, this was supposed to be our season. Not our season to 100% win the championship, but a year where things were supposed to come together better than they had the previous seasons -- guys would be at the end of their contracts, and this would be a make or break season for the team as it is currently composed. Instead everything pretty much went absolutely nuts -- in a bad way.

It could have been worse, you know -- it's not like we traded a player only for him to fail his medical examination (right Hornets?); or we haven't played our highest earning player a single second this year (right Knicks fans?). That said, it hasn't really been that great either.

I haven't been that glued to the Jazz this season partly because of how bad it got. I haven't felt this distanced since the 2004-2005 season (where AK missed 41 games and Carlos missed 31). The Jazz are sitting at 3rd place in their division and 8th in the conference right now. Why? If I had to point my finger on something I'd have to go with "Injuries for $500, Alex". After playing 55 games this season the Jazz have (only?) 23 losses.

Position	Name	Role	Accolades	# of games missed	Status
PG	Deron Williams	Team leader	All-NBA 2nd team last year, Top 5 PG in the L, Gold Medal winner	14	Injured in pre-season, played hurt all season long, finally feeling healed over the last two weeks
SG	Ronnie Brewer	Primary wing defender	Top 5 FG% SG in the L	1
SF	C.J. Miles	Utility player on offense	Never really had playing time before in his life	5
PF	Carlos Boozer	Top Scorer, Top Rebounder	Multiple time All-Star, Gold Medal winner	43	...and counting...
C	Mehmet Okur	Best outside threat, clutch shooter	Former All-Star, captain of his National Team	9	Had to fly to Turkey in the middle of a road trip because his father was on his death bed
6th Man	Andrei Kirilenko	Best defender, Glue guy	Former All-Star, MVP of Eurobasket 2007, European player of the year 2008	15	Just had ankle surgery, came back early, could have been out longer
	Brevin Knight	Team veteran off bench, oldest player	one of the best career Assist:Turn over ratios	8
	Paul Millsap	Became starter early in the season because of Boozer's injury, previously just an energy player off the bench	Had 19 straight double doubles this season	6	Got injured when the Jazz were reeling from other injuries to forwards/centers, has been playing hurt over the last 6 weeks
	Matt Harpring	Toughest hustle player	Player other NBA players hate to be defended by	14	Near fatal foot infection after surgery in the off-season
	Kyle Korver	Bench sharp-shooter	Highly regarded three point threat	4	Has played entire season with wrist injury to shooting hand
	Jarron Collins	Backup center	Probably had a good SAT score	38	Off-season golf cart accident that injured him and his twin brother, still a bad player, but still our backup center
				157 games total

That's a lot of games missed by key guys. If you divide 157 games evenly between your starters, and their back ups, you get an average of 16 games missed by each of your top 10 guys on your depth chart. That's not bad, especially not if those are spaced out. That's quite manageable. Unfortunately, the Jazz have had multiple injuries at the same time . . . sometimes to the same position on the court. Heck, there have been games where both Deron Williams and Brevin Knight have been out. If you haven't been following along, Jerry Sloan's offense is only as good as the point guard running it. During this stretch the Jazz had Ronnie Price (former 2 guard), C.J. Miles (a former 2 guard now playing the 3) and Andrei Kirilenko (former 4 playing the 3) running the show. How solid would the Lakers have been at the 2 (the triangle's most important position) if Kobe and Sasha were both out? Probably not that great, I reckon.

D-Will had to be carried off on Oct 18, 2008 thanks to some amazing Bowen like defense by Derrick Rose (Photographed by Joe Murphy for NBAE/Getty Images)	Boozer hurt his knee on Nov 19, 2008 against the Bucks, a non-contact injury which made little sense. (Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty Images)	AK was down but not out after his ankle surgery -- he came back to play pretty quickly for such a fragile looking guy. (Photographed by Lisa Blumenfeld for NBAE/Getty Images)	Nasty post-op foot infection, not actually Matt Harpring's foot though . . .	Memo and his dad Abdullah in the Istanbul Int'l airport, in happier times back in 2005.

Lots of teams face injuries during the season, it's just part of the game. Very few teams face a multitude of injuries/absences to the same position at the same time though. The zenith of it was a game against Philadelphia where Memo had to leave to fly to see his dad in Turkey, Jarron Collins was injured, Kyrylo Fesenko had to leave the country because of a work visa problem, and the Jazz had to start a 19 year old Kosta Koufos -- and Kosta had to defend guys like Elton Brand and Sam Dalembert all night long. The Jazz actually won that game. How crazy is that? All hail expanded rosters and 4th string (actually he should be 2nd) centers! [Sadly, this was one of the first games of the season -- and the most RECENT game recap on All That Jazz]

The injury situation has been absurd this season for the Utah Jazz . . . heck, yesterday our injured team owner even passed away. Never has a team been so cursed with injuries it seems. Well, there is good news -- so don't jump off any bridges yet. Right now the Jazz are the least injured they have been all season -- with only one key guy (Boozer) who is out. And rumor has it that he will be ready to play next week. The Jazz have managed to position themselves in the playoff hunt, and they are only 5 games behind in their division. Utah plays Denver twice yet this season, so if the Jazz win those two games then they only need to make up 3 more -- which is easily done if we come back hungry and healthy in this 2nd half of the season. It's a good time to be a Jazz fan, because as dark as things look now, things are only going to get better. After all, in the last few games the Jazz have (while still not at full strength) knocked off the LA Lakers and Boston Celtics.

Oh, if the Jazz do win the division Jerry Sloan should get COY . . . all the other playoff teams would have died by now with 157 injuries (spread unequally among the rotation guys). So here's to a healthy next 27 (+playoffs) games!

Go Jazz Go!

Game 7 Recap: Utah 93 - Philadelphia 80

Game at a Glance:

The Jazz bounce back from the ridiculous loss to the New York Knicks and win a game on the road. This was the first win on this five game Eastern Conference Road trip, and was a necessary win in the first game of a back-to-back set. Adding to the drama of this event was the fact that it was Kyle Korver's return / revenge game against his old club, the Philadelphia 76ers. It was also Kosta Koufos' first start in the NBA because every other bigman was out: Mehmet Okur was in Turkey to be there with his ailing father; Jarron Collins was still injured from his golf cart incident during the summer; and Kyrylo Fesenko had to leave the country due to visa issues. Oh yeah -- it was also Deron Williams' first game of the season as well. Pretty big game, storyline-wise. The real story of the game was the dominating performance by the Jazz bench (38 to 12 points), and the Ronnie Brewer show in the 4th quarter. Philly had no answer. (and haven't had him for a few seasons now . . .)

[ ESPN.com's boxscore -- Yahoo!Sports.com Game Recap -- NBA.com's game highlights -- SLCDunk.com -- TrueBlueJazz.com ]

Jazz Quartet -- Top Four Players of the Game:

Andrei Kirilenko	Carlos Boozer	Paul Millsap	Ronnie Brewer
Photographed by Ron Cortes for Philly.com	Photographed by Tom Mihalek for AP Photo	Photographed by Jesse D. Garrabrant for NBAE/Getty Images	Photographed by Jesse D. Garrabrant for NBAE/Getty Images
Andrei seems to have a permanent spot here as the team continues to have a wide variety of injuries this season. Andrei had a much better game than the last one, and he finished with 16 points (6-8 shooting, 4-4 from the FT line), 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 block in 33 minutes of action (and only 1 turn over!). Andrei was patient on offense finding his team mates, out-rebounded Dalembert on some misses and shot at least three outside jumpers with a high level of confidence, and swished each of them. He was one of four guys with at least 16 points in the game!	Boozer had another double double, this time with 19 points and 16 rebounds. If he was shooting better from the FT line he would have had a 20-10 game, something that has so far been elusive to him in the last few outings. He made himself a good target for Deron Williams, and the side pick and roll was called often, and worked often -- Boozer actually had a double double before halftime in this game, and Deron Williams had 8 assists. Boozer was a beast inside, scoring in a variety of ways, but his jumper was off -- and that's something that we're going to need to be on during the rest of the season against harder clubs.	Millsap tied Kirilenko with 16 points off the bench (though, he was slightly less efficient, going 8-12), and added 6 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 assists and 1 steal. His defense and rebounding was instrumental during the 4th quarter run by the bench, and his hard work was rewarded as his team mates looked for him inside. So far the unselfish play of the Jazz has really been a key reason why they've continued to win games with so many guys out. Millsap is a great example of this unselfish play.	Ronnie Brewer is going nuts these last few games. Last game was a 12/7/7 with some other stats for change. This night Brewer started off slowly (zero points at half, after missing all of his shots), but his team continued to work the ball to him, and he delivered when it counted. Ronnie finished the game with 16 points (6-16 fg, 0-3 3pt, 4-4 ft), and had 9 assists and 4 steals. Yes, he and Andrei almost had double doubles in this game, and both are 'second' tier players on this team. That's depth!

Digging Deeper:

There were several points to this game. The first is that, really, the Jazz won yet another game while being vastly short-handed. Kosta Koufos has to start, and nearly played half the game, against some of the best bigmen in the business (Brand and Dalembert). He did a fantastic job, and while he did not shoot a great percentage (3-8 fg), the times where he caught the ball somewhere close to the rim he did not hesitate and made a good, solid move to score. He still managed to get 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal and an assist in his time on the court. I was impressed with him on the offensive end with his ability to actually make a fluid post move. I was also impressed that he got the rebounds he was supposed to get. (nothing amazing, like how Boozer or Millsap get rebounds they should not get, but at the same time, not like Collins who misses rebounds he should get) Lastly, while he was really nervous (as any rookie should be), he manned up and played good ball. He had a good sequence in the 2nd quarter where he was making life hard on Elton Brand (who would finish with 13 points and 5 rebounds), and tied him up and forced a jump ball -- which Kosta won. Great job, Kosta!

While Koufos was impressive Deron was somewhere between impressive and 'meh'. He felt the need to come back sooner than he should have, and while he did have an okay game (statistically at least, with 7 points and 9 assists, 2 boards, 1 block and 2 turn overs), he did not play a good game. He did control the pace and was able to break his man off the dribble and find an open man on occasion -- but he was just as likely to pass the ball to someone a bit off where it should have been. He also forced his way inside, but did not have the speed, lift, or balance to make layups. His outside shooting was also pretty off.

Photographed by Jesse D. Garrabrant for NBAE/Getty Images

All in all he finished with 1-8 shooting (worse than Kover's 1-7, or Price+Knight's combined 1-5) and was just not quick enough on defense. Lou Williams was going by him with regularity before halftime. Even worse is the impression this game may have left on the minds of some people -- Andre Miller finished the game with 25 points -- most of them coming on unmolested layups. Some people may attribute that to Deron's defense, however, that just is not the case. Miller got many transition buckets, and lay ups in the same way Brewer does -- camping under the rim and getting the pass. Still, 25 points to Andre Miller is ridiculous. It's a good thing that no one else showed up . . .

Or more precisely, that Philly only really showed up in the 3rd quarter when their defense really clamped down on the Jazz when Deron and Boozer went to the bench. What was once a 14 point lead ended up becoming a 4 point deficit after the 3rd quarter was in the books. While that may have been reminiscent of the previous game in New York, the outcome of the 4th was nothing like it. Why? I'll tell you why! The Jazz bench (Knight, Korver, Kirilenko, Millsap, and starter Ronnie Brewer) started the 4th quarter on a 9-0 run which was mix of hustle on offense (like Andrei's 2nd tip shot attempt basket) and defense (Millsap had 2 blocks early in the 4th). By the time the main timeout of the quarter occurred the Jazz bench had outscored Philly 15-4 in the quarter. After that it was lights out as Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko kept feeding the hot hand, Ronnie Brewer, and he finished with a high number of layups and 'and ones'. Game over.

Next Game: Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 -- Utah @ Washington Wizards [2nd night of a back-to-back]